Overheated Chinese cities pledge to increase land supply

BEIJING (Reuters) – Housing authorities from China’s capital Beijing and coastal city Fuzhou have pledged to increase land supply to meet rising demand, in an effort to curb fast-rising prices.

Beijing will further increase land supply for primary residential property projects that mainly consist of small- to medium-sized units, the Beijing Municipal Planning and Land Resources Management Commission said in a notice posted on its website on Thursday.

It announced in the notice the plan to auction five plots of land, totaling 34.9 hectares, for residential property development in the city.

Ranked among the Top 10 cities with most heated price increases by China’s statistics bureau in August, the coastal city of Fuzhou in southeastern Fujian province also stepped up cooling measures, vowing to provide more land to tackle supply-demand imbalances.

The Fuzhou government said in a notice posted on its website on Thursday that it aims to release 20 percent more land for residential properties than originally planned within three years, urging counties with less than 12 months of inventories to increase land supply.

It also asked local regulators to increase down payment ratio and “adjust relevant policies” accordingly for second-time home buyers to stabilize market expectations, but did not specify or elaborate.